


Behind Baker Street

by Ayre_You_There



Category: British Actor RPF, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Irregulars - Fandom
Genre: Coming Out, Foot Fetish, Foot Massage, Gay, Gay Character, Gay Male Character, Gay Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22288264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayre_You_There/pseuds/Ayre_You_There
Summary: Harrison Osterfield was recently cast as one of the Baker Street Irregulars in a new Netflix series, and the experience has more ups and downs than he had originally hoped for. His oldest friend steps in to help while he starts to get to know new costars.
Relationships: Tom Holland/Harrison Osterfield
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Behind Baker Street

**Author's Note:**

> I know NOTHING, and I mean LITERALLY NOTHING about the upcoming show, The Irregulars, nor do I own any rights to it or the cast/crew. This is an entirely fictional work filling in the void while I await the actual show, about which I intend to write more fanfiction.

"Ugh, what the bloody hell...?"

Harrison Osterfield groaned as he rolled around his bed, blindly grasping for the buzzing phone he was certain was hiding somewhere in the sheets. Judging from the fact that he couldn't keep his eyes open against the sun, he assumed it was a reasonable hour to wake up, but his traveling schedule had thoroughly wrecked his sense of time lately.

Through some miraculous act of good fortune, his fingers found his phone and he pulled the covers up over his head, using the darkness to defend his eyes from the sun as he read the caller ID. He knew the number immediately: it was his agent, surely calling him with audition results. The familiar butterflies filled his gut. No, not butterflies. Bees. Audition results always turned his stomach uncomfortably. It wasn't that he didn't get anything--he'd actually had a lot of luck recently--but even being a moderately successful actor was a lot more work than most people realized. Auditioning was the job; filming was the easy part. 90% of the calls he got were rejections, and those were still good odds in his line of work. Still, his most recent audition was for a show that really piqued his interest, so his anxiety was slightly heightened. But Netflix originals never cast unknowns in the leads, not since they've had the budget to hire whomever they want.

"Is it me, or are the mornings getting earlier and earlier?" he mumbled into the phone, trying to make light of what was likely going to be an uncomfortable phone call.

His agent, Annette, laughed on the other side. "Not to the bearer of bad news--" Harrison groaned in disappointment. "...but it's just you," she finished. "Time works against you when you fly to the US and back twice a month."

Harrison's breath hitched just a bit, involuntarily, and cursed Annette's rhetorical skills. He thought for sure she was just going to give him the bad _job_ news. She usually did, just to make it easier. She wasn't the type to draw it out, good news or bad. Then it clicked. She would only toy with him like that if...

"I got it?!"

"What gave it away?" she replied with a smile visible even through the phone. "Hold onto those deduction skills, Sherlock, you'll need them soon."

Harrison snorted a laugh. "Okay now I know you're lying to me; I definitely didn't get cast as Sherlock."

"No no no no, don't be ridiculous," she said, ignoring Harrisons offended _"hey"_ as she continued. "They want you as Leopold."

"Ha ha," he said dryly. "I'm gonna let that little hit go because I'm still excited. Okay, so who exactly is Leopold?"

Harrison could sense Annette rolling her eyes. "I've already emailed you the prototype character profile, so check your spam filter, but basically you're the cute one."

"..."

"Harrison?"

"I'm here."

"I know I hear you breathing. Why aren't saying anything? I know you're hiding in your bed under the covers, and yes I know your laptop is also under the covers but I also know that you don't know where it is yet. Therefore, you're not checking your email yet. See? I have deductive skills too." 

Harrison lazily kicked about for his laptop and moaned when he felt his little toe make contact with it, a bit harder than intended.

"You found your laptop?"

"You're lucky you're a good agent, Annette," he teased. In truth, he adored her and owed her everything, and her dry sarcasm was a necessary component given her stressful job of regularly giving her clients bad news. "I'm not saying anything because you're not saying _something._ What are you hiding?" She never started by telling him all the good aspects of his roles; far more often she calmly listed all of his character faults while he cringed at the other end of the phone.

"Wow you are good," she replied. "You'll make a great Irregular."

"Annette..."

"Okay okay okay okay. You're the really athletic one. You're the one that has to hop all the fences and cling onto moving carriages and scale chimneys."

Harrison grinned. That sounded fun. Sure, he wasn't as famous for his sportive skills as his best friend, but was in great shape and only getting better. "Well that's okay, I'll call Tom to train for the really hard stuff!"

"You're gay."

"Bloody Hell, Annette, you can't believe everything people post--"

"Your character."

"...wait, what?"

"Leopold."

"Yes, what about him?"

"He's gay."

"He's gay?"

"Closeted, but yes. That's a side plot for the first season."

"...so, why do you think that would be a problem for me?"

"I don't. I think it was an apt casting."

Harrison froze for a moment, and then shook his head. "I'm not closeted--"

"YOU'RE OUT?!"

"NO, I'm not gay, Annette."

"Is that a problem?" her sentence was serious but her voice was vaguely teasing.

"NO, OF COURSE NOT, I'm... _very_ open-minded, I promise. They don't really let you graduate a theater program without that," he joked lightly. "It'll be fun. My gay friends will be pissed though, that they cast a straight guy in a gay role."

"Did they?"

"YES!"

"You're sure?"

"Yep."

"You're positive?"

"Mmhmm, I gotta go Annette," he said. He knew she was just teasing him because of his close friendship with Tom Holland, but it wasn't the first time someone had pressed him on this issue. Hell, it wasn't even the first time _she_ had pressed him on this issue. It was fine, it was always fine, but if he had to choose between this conversation and checking out his new character profile for his new role, the choice was easy.

"Check your email, Haz."

"I'm on it right now."

"Say hi to Tom."

"He's not here, Annette."

"HI ANNETTE!"

Harrison ripped the covers off of his head to see his old friend standing in his bedroom doorway. _"HI TOM!"_ rang out from his phone despite it not being on speaker phone. "Why did I give you a key?" he asked sarcastically.

"Because you love me," Tom casually replied, jumping onto the bed and ruffling Harrison's hair.

"Is he in your bed with you?" 

"Goodbye Annette." Harrison's face was progressively getting redder.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," she advised, donning her controlling parental voice.

Tom chimed in, leaning in to Harrison's phone seemingly unaware of the fact that Harrison's face was millimeters away. "Trust me, Annette: he won't do anything you _would_ do!"

"Okay," Harrison grumbled in mild embarrassment, clicking the "End Call" button before either of them could utter another syllable. "That's enough of that."

Tom was nearly bursting with laughter. "What's got your laces in a ladle, mate?"

Harrison shoved his friend off of the bed and pulled the covers back over his head. "That's not even a saying!"

Tom shrugged, admitting defeat. "I know, I know. I was trying to think of one to make fun of your shoe addiction. But seriously," he said, standing up from the floor Harrison had shoved him onto. "What's eating you? Bad news?"

Immediately Harrison's embarrassment vanished and he threw the covers completely to the far side of the bed, jumping up in excitement. "No, GREAT NEWS! Well, Annette, was making fun of me because I'm gay--"

"You're gay?"

"NO--"

"Not that I care of course, I just--"

"TOM!" Harrison jumped off the bed, landing squarely in front of his front, beat red but still smiling from ear to ear. "My _character_ is gay, not me. Annette was just making fun of me because of us, you know, the same old thing," he said with a casual wave of his hand, brushing it off for the millionth time. "Anyway-"

"YOU GOT THE PART!" Tom wrapped his arms around Harrison in an enormous gesture of congratulations, and Harrison gleefully leaned into the embrace.

"I did. I'm a Baker Street Irregular. The cute, athletic, gay one."

"Let's celebrate! I'll order Mexican."

"Tom, you hate British Mexican." 

Tom turned around and ran into the kitchen, already dialing his phone. "I hate American Mexican."

"Same thing..." Harrison mocked.

"Not at all," Tom argued, laughing. "Besides, it's just an excuse to drink margaritas."

"You hate margaritas; you drink beer."

"We're celebrating you, not me," Tom retorted, a clever gleam in his eyes. "And you love them."

Harrison rolled his eyes and ran after his friend. "I love you too," he teased. His words were joking, but genuine in gratitude.

"Gay."

"Not funny."

"A little funny."

"Not accurate." 

"I'm just saying, you said you love me while standing in my kitchen in your underwear. Any stranger who walked in right now would think we're gay."

Harrison was stifling his urge to laugh and groan at the same time. "We're not gay--"

"No need to get so defensive--"

"I'm not, I swear!" Tom was laughing hysterically at this point, clearly just having fun riling Harrison up. "You remember that dance I did in school!"

"The homoerotic one on YouTube?"

"Yes!"

"Yeah, that was pretty gay too."

"Dammit, Tom," Harrison rolled his eyes and sat on the bar stool, plopping his head in his hands on the bar in exasperation. 

"I'm just giving you shit, mate You know I don't actually care about this stuff at all, right?" For all his jokes, Tom was genuinely making sure his friend was okay and felt safe here, whether he was gay or not.

"I know, thanks mate," Harrison replied, playfully punching Tom's arm. "I do love you, as a friend...also I _do_ love margs, but do we have to drink them now? It's like 9am."

"It's 1:30pm."

Harrison groaned for what felt like the millionth time this morning--this afternoon--and admitted defeat to the universe, plopping his face against the cold granite countertop. "Tea please."

"Tequila, got it."


End file.
